3 Easy Steps to Increase Your Accuracy

     Have you ever analyzed your game after a win, excited to see how well you performed, only to discover that your accuracy was sub-par?  Numerous beginners, intermediates, and even some advanced players struggle with this same issue.  Upon analyzing a game and finding out your accuracy suffered, you might say to yourself "next time I will do better," but often times, we don't.  This may not be from a lack of practice, but rather due to a lack of understanding.

     First of all, what does your accuracy mean on chess.com?  Well, accuracy is determined from the percentage of times you played one of the top moves suggested by the computer engine.  Book moves give you 100% accuracy, so after playing the opening line of the Roy Lopez, your accuracy is 100.  After that, any move that you make which is not the absolute best one, decreases your accuracy.  Now that we know what accuracy is and how it is gained/lost, let's dive into how to consistently get higher accuracy in our games.

     Analyzing.  If you don't already analyze all of your chess games, start now!  Paying for a chess.com membership offers lots of great features, but unlimited access to analysis is among the best.  People say that the best way to learn is from your mistakes; by pouring time into your game report/analysis and studying where you went wrong and what you could have improved upon, you are already on your way to becoming a better player.  By studying the best move in each situation, your brain will become accustomed to analyzing your current position and weighing the imbalances on the board at a glance.  

     Secondly, think before you move!  Just like you think before you speak (or are supposed to anyway), you should pause for a moment and consider the repercussions of the move you are about to make.  Playing longer rapid games is a great way to practice this, so that when you are duelling in blitz or bullet matches, your mind will be sharpened to see where you should go.  Taking a moment to consider your next move will help you to spot possible tactics or negative consequences to a particular move and improve your chances of having a higher accuracy.

   Lastly, practice puzzles!  Tactics not only help you win games, but also drastically improves muscle-memory skills.  By looking for possible tactics in the moves ahead, game plans often form themselves, and this, in turn, will help your accuracy percentage to rise.  Remember, the engine's analysis considers tons of different variations and possible outcomes, so if you can find a good tactic to implement in your game, that will very likely be a top choice by the computer as well, which in turn will increase your accuracy.